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Behind Every Individual Closes Organization; Before Him Opens Liberty,--the Better, The Best. The First And Worse Races Are Dead.the Second And Imperfect Races Are Dying Out, Or Remain For The Maturing Of The Higher. In The Latest Race, In Man, Every Generosity, Every New Perception, The Love And Praise He Extorts From His Fellows, Are Certificates Of Advance Out Of Fate Into Freedom.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Behind Every Individual Closes

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Behind Every Individual Closes Organization; Before Him Opens Liberty,--the Better, The Best. The First And Worse Races Are Dead.the Second And Imperfect Races Are Dying Out, Or Remain For The Maturing Of The Higher. In The Latest Race, In Man, Every Generosity, Every New Perception, The Love And Praise He Extorts From His Fellows, Are Certificates Of Advance Out Of Fate Into Freedom.

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You Cannot Hide Any Secret. If The Artist Succor His Flagging Spirits By Opium Or Wine, His Work Will Characterize Itself As The Effect Of Opium Or Wine. If You Make A Picture Or A Statue, It Sets The Beholder In That State Of Mind You Had When You Made It. If You Spend For Show, On Building, Or Gardening, Or On Pictures, Or On Equipages, It Will So Appear. We Are All Physiognomists And Penetrators Of Character, And Things Themselves Are Detective.

Speak As You Think, Be What You Are, Pay Your Debts Of All Kinds. I Prefer To Be Owned As Sound And Solvent, And My Word As Good As My Bond, And To Be What Cannot Be Skipped, Or Dissipated, Or Undermined, To All The Eclat In The Universe. This Reality Is The Foundation Of Friendship, Religion, Poetry, And Art.

Let A Man Attain The Highest And Broadest Culture That Any American Has Possessed, Then Let Him Die By Sea-storm, Railroad Collision, Or Other Accident, And All America Will Acquiesce That The Best Thing Has Happened To Him; That, After The Education Has Gone Far, Such Is The Expensiveness Of America, That The Best Use To Put A Fine Person To Is To Drown Him To Save His Board.

Our First Mistake Is The Belief That The Circumstance Gives The Joy Which We Give To The Circumstance.

You Will Think Me Very Pedantic, Gentlemen, But Holiday Though It May Be, I Have Not The Smallest Interest In Any Holiday, Except As It Celebrates Real And Not Pretended Joys.

For, The Sense Of Being Which In Calm Hours Rises, We Know Not How, In The Soul, Is Not Diverse From Things, From Space, From Light, From Time, From Man, But One With Them, And Proceeds Obviously From The Same Source Whence Their Life And Being Also Proceed. We First Share The Life By Which Things Exist, And Afterwards See Them As Appearances In Nature, And Forget That We Have Shared Their Cause. Here Is The Fountain Of Action And Of Thought.

Few People Have Any Next, They Live From Hand To Mouth Without A Plan, And Are Always At The End Of Their Line.

What Is Life But The Angle Of Vision? A Man Is Measured By The Angle At Which He Looks At Objects.

There Is Some Awe Mixed With The Joy Of Our Surprise, When This Poet, Who Lived In Some Past World, Two Or Three Hundred Years Ago, Says That Which Lies Close To My Own Soul, That Which I Also Had Wellnigh Thought And Said.

When A Man Says To Me, "i Have The Intensest Love Of Nature," At Once I Know That He Has None.

Saving The Earth

A Strenuous Soul Hates Cheap Success. It Is The Ardor Of The Assailant That Makes The Vigor Of The Defendant.

Senators And Presidents Have Climbed So High With Pain Enough, Not Because They Think The Place Specially Agreeable, But As An Apology For Real Worth, And To Vindicate Their Manhood In Our Eyes. This Conspicuous Chair Is Their Compensation To Themselves For Being Of A Poor, Cold, Hard Nature.

Take The Place And Attitude To Which You See Your Unquestionable Right, And All Men Acquiesce.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions.

Will And Determination

There Is A Time In Every Man's Education When He Arrives At The Conviction That Envy Is Ignorance; That Imitation Is Suicide; That He Must Take Himself For Better, For Worse, As His Portion; That Though The Wide Universe Is Full Of Good, No Kernel Of Nourishing Corn Can Come To Him But Through His Toil Bestowed On That Plot Of Ground Which Is Given To Him To Till. The Power Which Resides In Him Is New In Nature, And None But He Knows What That Is Which He Can Do, Nor Does He Know Until He Has Tried.

The End Of Being Is To Know; And If You Say, The End Of Knowledge Is Action,-why, Yes, But The End Of That Action Again, Is Knowledge.

Nothing Divine Dies. All Good Is Eternally Reproductive. The Beauty Of Nature Re-forms Itself In The Mind, And Not For Barren Contemplation, But For New Creation.

I Have Sometimes Thought That, In Order To Be A Good Minister, It Was Necessary To Leave The Ministry. The Profession Is Antiquated. In An Altered Age, We Worship In The Dead Forms Of Our Forefathers.

Heaven Always Bears Some Proportion To Earth. The God Of The Cannibal Will Be A Cannibal, Of The Crusades A Crusader, And Of The Merchants A Merchant.

There Is A Mortifying Experience In Particular, Which Does Not Fail To Wreak Itself Also In The General History; I Mean "the Foolish Face Of Praise," The Forced Smile Which We Put On In Company Where We Do Not Feel At Ease, In Answer To Conversation Which Does Not Interest Us. The Muscles, Not Spontaneously Moved But Moved, By A Low Usurping Wilfulness, Grow Tight About The Outline Of The Face, With The Most Disagreeable Sensation.

If A Teacher Have Any Opinion Which He Wishes To Conceal, His Pupils Will Become As Fully Indoctrinated Into That As Into Any Which He Publishes.

Why Should I Cumber Myself With Regrets That The Receiver Is Not Capacious? It Never Troubles The Sun That Some Of His Rays Fall Wide And Vain Into Ungrateful Space, And Only A Small Part On The Reflecting Planet. Let Your Greatness Educate The Crude And Cold Companion.

Our Poets Are Men Of Talents Who Sing, And Not The Children Of Music.

But The Best Read Naturalist Who Lends An Entire And Devout Attention To Truth, Will See That There Remains Much To Learn Of His Relation To The World, And That It Is Not To Be Learned By Any Addition Or Subtraction Or Other Comparison Of Known Quantities, But Is Arrived At By Untaught Sallies Of The Spirit, By A Continual Self-recovery, And By Entire Humility.

By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote.

It Does Not To Dwell On Dreams And Forget To Live, But It Is Equally Foolish To Ignore The Past – Never Forget.

Belief Consists In Accepting The Affirmations Of The Soul; Unbelief In Denying Them.

The Course Of Everything Goes To Teach Us Faith.

Presently We Pass To Some Other Object Which Rounds Itself Into A Whole As Did The First; For Example, A Well-laid Garden; And Nothing Seems Worth Doing But The Laying~out Of Gardens.

Nothing Is Secure But Life, Transition, The Energizing Spirit.

Criticism Is Infested With The Cant Of Materialism, Which Assumes That Manual Skill And Activity Is The First Merit Of All Men, And Disparages Such As Say And Do Not, Overlooking The Fact, That Some Men, Namely, Poets, Are Natural Sayers, Sent Into The World To The End Of Expression, And Confounds Them With Those Whose Province Is Action, But Who Quit To Imitate The Sayers.

Nobody Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

Shakespeare Possesses The Power Of Subordinating Nature For The Purposes Of Expression, Beyond All Poets. His Imperial Muse Tosses The Creation Like A Bauble From Hand To Hand, And Uses It To Embody Any Caprice Of Thought That Is Uppermost In His Mind. The Remotest Spaces Of Nature Are Visited, And The Farthest Sundered Things Are Brought Together, By Subtle Spiritual Connection. We Are Made Aware That Magnitude Of Material Things Is Relative, And All Objects Shrink And Expand To Serve The Passion Of The Poet.

Skepticism Is Unbelief In Cause And Effect.

Cause And Effect

If You Would Lift Me Up, You've Got To Be On Higher Ground.

Therefore Is Nature Ever The Ally Of Religion: Lends Her All Her Pomp And Riches To The Religious Sentiment.

He That Rides His Hobby Gently Must Always Give Way To Him That Rides His Hobby Hard.

Every Artist Was First An Amateur.

Deep Insight Will Always, Like Nature, Ultimate Its Thought In A Thing.

Nature Has Made Up Her Mind That What Cannot Defend Itself Shall Not Be Defended.

Thoughts Come Into Our Minds By Avenues Which We Never Left Open, And Thoughts Go Out Of Our Minds Through Avenues Which We Never Voluntarily Opened.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

God Evidently Does Not Intend Us All To Be Rich, Or Powerful Or Great, But He Does Intend Us All To Be Friends.

You Cannot Sincerely Try To Help Another Without Helping Yourself

Build A Better Mousetrap And The World Will Beat A Path To Your Door.

A Human Being Should Beware How He Laughs, For Then He Shows All His Faults.

Courage Is Temperamental, Scientific, Ideal.

If The Stars Should Appear One Night In A Thousand Years, How Would Men Believe And Adore; And Preserve For Many Generations The Remembrance Of The City Of God Which Had Been Shown! But Every Night Come Out These Envoys Of Beauty, And Light The Universe With Their Admonishing Smile.

All Promise Outruns Performance.

Almost All People Descend To Meet. All Association Must Be A Compromise, And, What Is Worst, The Very Flower And Aroma Of The Flower Of Each Of The Beautiful Natures Disappears As They Approach Each Other.

My Son, A Perfect Little Boy Of Five Years And Three Months, Had Ended His Earthly Life. You Can Never Sympathize With Me; You Can Never Know How Much Of Me Such A Young Child Can Take Away. A Few Weeks Ago I Accounted Myself A Very Rich Man, And Now The Poorest Of All.

The Value Of A Principle Is The Number Of Things It Will Explain.

Murder In The Murderer Is No Such Ruinous Thought As Poets And Romancers Will Have It; It Does Not Unsettle Him, Or Fright Him From His Ordinary Notice Of Trifles; It Is An Act Quite Easy To Be Contemplated.

Always Do What You Are Afraid To Do.

Wise Men Read Very Sharply All Of Your Private History In Your Look And Gait And Behavior.

Genius Appeals To The Future.

The Most Useful Man In The Most Useful World, So Long As Only Commodity Was Served, Would Remain Unsatisfied. But, As Fast As He Sees Beauty, Life Acquires A Very High Value.

I Know Nothing Which Life Has To Offer So Satisfying As The Profound Good Understanding, Which Can Subsist, After Much Exchange Ofgood Offices, Between Two Virtuous Men, Each Of Whom Is Sure Of Himself, And Sure Of His Friend. It Is A Happiness Which Postpones All Other Gratifications, And Makes Politics, And Commerce, And Churches, Cheap.

There Is, In All Great Poets, A Wisdom Of Humanity Which Is Superior To Any Talents They Exercise.

Go Forth Into The Busy World And Love It. Interest Yourself In Its Life, Mingle Kindly With Its Joys And Sorrows.

A Judge May Be A Farmer; But He Is Not To Geld His Own Pigs.

The Philosophy Of Waiting Is Sustained By All The Oracles Of The Universe.

Or Whipping Its Rough Surface For A Trout.

Trust Men And They Will Be True To You; Treat Them Greatly And They Will Show Themselves Great.

One Man's Justice Is Another's Injustice; One Man's Beauty Another's Ugliness; One Man's Wisdom Anpther's Folly.

Genius, Even, As It Is The Greatest Good, Is He Greatest Harm.

The Subject Is Said To Have The Property Of Making Dull Men Eloquent.

In Our Large Cities, The Population Is Godless, Materialized,--no Bond, No Fellow-feeling, No Enthusiasm. These Are Not Men, But Hungers, Thirsts, Fevers, And Appetites Walking. How Is It People Manage To Live On,--so Aimless As They Are? After Their Peppercorn Aims Are Gained, It Seems As If The Lime In Their Bones Alone Held Them Together, And Not Any Worthy Purpose.

We Fill The Hands And Nurseries Of Our Children With All Manner Of Dolls, Drums And Horses, Withdrawing Their Eyes From The Plain Face And... Nature, The Sun And Moon, The Animals, The Water And Stones, Which Should Be Their Toys.

Nature Is Not Always Tricked In Holiday Attire, But The Same Scene Which Yesterday Breathed Perfume And Glittered As For The Frolic Of The Nymphs, Is Overspread With Melancholy Today. Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit.

What We Love That We Have, But By Desire We Bereave Ourselves Of The Love.

Some Will Always Be Above Others.

Looking At God Instantly Reduces Our Disposition To Dissent From Our Brother.

Is The Parent Better Than The Child Into Whom He Has Cast His Ripened Being? Whence, Then, This Worship Of The Past?

To The Body And Mind Which Have Been Cramped By Noxious Work Or Company, Nature Is Medicinal And Restores Their Tone. The Tradesman, The Attorney Comes Out Of The Din And Craft Of The Street And Sees The Sky And The Woods, And Is A Man Again. In Their Eternal Calm, He Finds Himself.

But Hospitality Must Be For Service, And Not For Show, Or It Pulls Down The Host. The Brave Soul Rates Itself Too High To Value Itself By The Splendor Of Its Table And Draperies. It Gives What It Hath, And All It Hath, But Its Own Majesty Can Lend A Better Grace To Bannocks And Fair Water Than Belong To City Feasts.

Men Admire The Man Who Can Organize Their Wishes And Thoughts In Stone And Wood And Steel And Brass.

The French Woman Says, 'i Am A Woman And A Parisienne, And Nothing Foreign To Me Appears Altogether Human.'

Don't Be A Cynic, And Bewail And Bemoan. Omit The Negative Propositions. Don't Waste Yourself In Rejection, Nor Bark Against The Bad, But Chant The Beauty Of The Good. Set Down Nothing That Will Help Somebody.

We See The World Piece By Piece, As The Sun, The Moon, The Animal, The Tree; But The Whole, Of Which These Are Shining Parts, Is The Soul.

We Swim, Day By Day, On A River Of Delusions, And Are Effectually Amused With Houses And Towns In The Air, Of Which The Men Aboutus Are Dupes. But Life Is A Sincerity.

Manners Require Time, And Nothing Is More Vulgar Than Haste.

Conservatism Makes No Poetry, Breathes No Prayer, Has No Invention; It Is All Memory. Reform Has No Gratitude, No Prudence, No Husbandry.

Books Take Their Place According To Their Specific Gravity As Surely As Potatoes In A Tub.

A Man Often Pays Dear For A Small Frugality.

Friends Are Like Spaghetti, They Should Stick Together. The Only Way To Have A Friend Is To Be One.

If We Tire Of The Saints, Shakspeare Is Our City Of Refuge.

Science, Nature,-o, I've Yearned To Open Some Page.

The Lover Is Made Happier By His Love Than The Object Of His Affection.

Cities Give Us Collision. 'tis Said, London And New York Take The Nonsense Out Of A Man.

To Speak Truly, Few Adult Persons Can See Nature. Most Persons Do Not See The Sun.

Thy Dangerous Glances Make Women Of Men; New-born, We Are Melting Into Nature Again.

Of Nature Itself Upon The Soul; The Sunrise, The Haze Of Autumn, The Winter Starlight Seem Interlocutors; The Prevailing Sense Is That Of An Exposition In Poetry; A High Discourse, The Voice Of The Speaker Seems To Breathe As Much From The Landscape As From His Own Breast; It Is Nature Communing With The Seer.

Condense Some Daily Experience Into A Glowing Symbol And An Audience Is Electrified.

[w]e Pity Our Fathers For Dying Before Steam And Galvanism, Sulphuric Ether And Ocean Telegraphs, Photograph And Spectrograph Arrived, As Cheated Out Of Their Human Estate.

If You Will Not Lend Me The Money, How Can I Pay You?

Up And Away For Life! Be Fleet!- The Frost-king Ties My Fumbling Feet, Sings In My Ears, My Hands Are Stones, Curdles The Blood To The Marble Bones, Tugs At The Heart-strings, Numbs The Sense, And Hems In Life With Narrowing Fence. Well, In This Broad Bed Lie And Sleep,- The Punctual Stars Will Vigil Keep,- Embalmed By Purifying Cold; The Winds Shall Sing Their Dead-march Old, The Snow Is No Ignoble Shroud, The Moon Thy Mourner, And The Cloud.

Self Sacrifice Is The Real Miracle Out Of Which All The Reported Miracles Grow.

The Poise Of A Plant, The Bended Tree Recovering Itself From The Strong Wind, The Vital Resources Of Every Vegetable And Animal, Are Also Demonstrations Of The Self-sufficing, And Therefore Self-relying Soul. All History From Its Highest To Its Trivial Passages Is The Various Record Of This Power.

Drive Out Nature With A Fork, She Comes Running Back.

Finish Each Day Before You Begin The Next, And Interpose A Solid Wall Of Sleep Between The Two. This You Cannot Do Without Temperance.

The First Steps In Agriculture, Astronomy, Zoology, (those First Steps Which The Farmer, The Hunter, And The Sailor Take,) Teach That Nature's Dice Are Always Loaded; That In Her Heaps And Rubbish Are Concealed Sure And Useful Results.

It Is A Sign Of Our Times, Conspicuous To The Coarsest Observer, That Many Intelligent And Religious Persons Withdraw Themselves From The Common Labors And Competitions Of The Market And The Caucus, And Betake Themselves To A Certain Solitary And Critical Way Of Living, From Which No Solid Fruit Has Yet Appeared To Justify Their Separation.

It Is One Of The Beautiful Compensations In This Life That No One Can Sincerely Try To Help Another Without Helping Himself.

Tis The Old Secret Of The Gods That They Come In Low Disguises.

The Bulk Of Mankind Believe In Two Gods. They Are Under One Dominion Here In The House, As Friend And Parent, In Social Circles, In Letters, In Art, In Love, In Religion; But In Mechanics, In Dealing With Steam And Climate, In Trade, In Politics, They Think They Come Under Another.

Happy Is He Who Looks Only Into His Work To Know If It Will Succeed, Never Into The Times Or The Public Opinion; And Who Writes From The Love Of Imparting Certain Thoughts And Not From The Necessity Of Sale - Who Writes Always To The Unknown Friend.

To Be Great, You Must Be Misunderstood

A Day For Toil, An Hour For Sport, But For A Friend Is Life Too Short.

It Is True That Genius Takes Its Rise Out Of The Mountains Of Rectitude; That All Beauty And Power Which Men Covet Are Somehow Born Out Of That Alpine District; That Any Extraordinary Degree Of Beauty In Man Or Woman Involves A Moral Charm.

All Forms Of Government Symbolize An Immortal Government, Common To All Dynasties And Independent Of Numbers, Perfect Where Two Men Exist, Perfect Where There Is Only One Man.

It Was High Counsel That I Once Heard Given To A Young Person, 'always Do What You Are Afraid To Do.'

The Betrothed And Accepted Lover Has Lost The Wildest Charms Of His Maiden By Her Acceptance. She Was Heaven While He Pursued Her, But She Cannot Be Heaven If She Stoops To One Such As He!

To A Physician, Each Man, Each Woman, Is An Amplification Of One Organ.

A Man Is A Beggar Who Only Lives To The Useful, And, However He May Serve As A Pin Or Rivet In The Social Machine, Cannot Be Saidto Have Arrived At Self-possession.

The Torpid Artist Seeks Inspiration At Any Cost, By Virtue Or By Vice, By Friend Or By Fiend, By Prayer Or By Wine.

Life Has No Memory. That Which Proceeds In Succession Might Be Remembered, But That Which Is Coexistent, Or Ejaculated From A Deeper Cause, As Yet Far From Being Conscious, Knows Not Its Own Tendency.

I Like To Be Beholden To The Great Metropolitan English Speech, The Sea Which Receives Tributaries From Every Region Under Heaven.

We Are Made Aware That Magnitude Of Material Things Is Relative, And All Objects Shrink And Expand To Serve The Passion Of The Poet. Thus, In His Sonnets, The Lays Of Birds, The Scents And Dyes Of Flowers, He Finds To Be The Shadow Of His Beloved; Time, Which Keeps Her From Him, Is His Chest; The Suspicion She Has Awakened, Is Her Ornament

The Whole Value Of The Dime Is In Knowing What To Do With It.

Sleep Takes Off The Costume Of Circumstance, Arms Us With Terrible Freedom, So That Every Will Rushes To A Deed.

It Is So Wonderful To Our Neurologists That A Man Can See Without His Eyes, That It Does Not Occur To Them That Is Just As Wonderful That He Should See With Them; And That Is Ever The Difference Between The Wise And The Unwise: The Latter Wonders At What Is Unusual, The Wise Man Wonders At The Usual.

The Wonder Is That We Can See These Trees And Not Wonder More.

Democracy Becomes A Government Of Bullies Tempered By Editors.

Democracies Have

I Didn't Find My Friends; The Good Lord Gave Them To Me.

Men Who Know The Same Things Are Not Long The Best Company For Each Other.

A Foolish Consistency Is The Hobgoblin Of Little Minds, Adored By Little Statesmen And Philosophers And Divines.

All Mankind Love A Lover.

Wherever There Is Failure, There Is Some Giddiness, Some Superstition About Luck, Some Step Omitted, Which, Nature Never Pardons.

Our Life Is Not So Much Threatened As Our Perception. Ghostlike We Glide Through Nature, And Should Not Know Our Place Again.

Let Us Advance On Chaos And The Dark

Tis Curious That We Only Believe As Deeply As We Live.

Conversation Is An Evanescent Relation,--no More.

We Live In A New And Exceptional Age. America Is Another Word For Opportunity. Our Whole History Appears Like A Last Effort Of The Divine Providence In Behalf Of The Human Race; And A Literal, Slavish Following Of Precedents, As By A Justice Of The Peace, Is Not For Those Who At This Hour Lead The American Civilization.

It Is Not An Arbitrary "decree Of God," But In The Nature Of Man, That A Veil Shuts Down On The Facts Of To-morrow; For The Soul Will Not Have Us Read Any Other Cipher Than That Of Cause And Effect. By This Veil, Which Curtains Events, It Instructs The Children Of Men To Live In To-day.

The Religion Of One Age Is The Literary Entertainment Of The Next.

But Do Your Work, And I Shall Know You. Do Your Work, And You Shall Reinforce Yourself.

Make Yourself Necessary To Somebody.

Self Improvement

Friendship Love

Youth Is Everywhere In Place.

Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Every One Of Its Members.

A Man Is Not To Aim At Innocence, Any More Than He Is To Aim At Hair, But He Is To Keep It.

Enthusiasm Is One Of The Most Powerful Engines Of Success. When You Do A Thing, Do It With All Your Might.

Enthusiasm For Life

How Much Better When The Whole Land Is A Garden, And The People Have Grown Up In The Bowers Of A Paradise.

Work And Acquire, And Thou Hast Chained The Wheel Of Chance.

We Forget Ourselves And Our Destinies In Health, And The Chief Use Of Temporary Sickness Is To Remind Us Of These Concerns.

I Have Just Been Conversing With One Man, To Whom No Weight Of Adverse Experience Will Make It For A Moment Appear Impossible That Thousands Of Human Beings Might Exercise Towards Each Other The Grandest And Simplest Sentiments, As Well As A Knot Of Friends, Or A Pair Of Lovers.

The True Ship Is The Ship Builder.

The Genius Is A Genius By The First Look He Casts On Any Object. Is His Eye Creative? Does He Not Rest In Angles And Colors, But Beholds The Design,--he Will Presently Undervalue The Actual Object.

Truth Is Beautiful Within And Without, Forevermore.

That Which We Call Sin In Others Is Experiment For Us.

Tomorrow Is A New Day; Begin It Well And Serenely And With Too High A Spirit To Be Encumbered With Your Old Nonsense.

Positive Thinking

You Never Know How You Look Through Other People's Eyes.

Go, Speed The Stars Of Thought On To Their Shining Goals; - The Sower Scatters Broad His Seed, The Wheat Thou Strew'st Be Souls.

If You Criticize A Fine Genius, The Odds Are That You Are Out Of Your Reckoning, And, Instead Of The Poet, Are Censuring Your Owncaricature Of Him.

Coffee Is Good For Talent, But Genius Wants Prayer.

No Society Can Ever Be So Large As One Man.

A Scholar Does Not Wish To Be Always Pumping His Brains; He Wants Gossips.

If A Man Can Write A Better Book, Preach A Better Sermon, Or Make A Better Mousetrap Than His Neighbor, Though He Build His House In The Woods, The World Will Make A Beaten Path To His Door.

A Man Of Good Sense But Of Little Faith, Whose Compassion Seemed To Lead Him To Church As Often As He Went There, Said To Me; 'that He Liked To Have Concerts, And Fairs, And Churches, And Other Public Amusements Go On.

Religious Literature Has Eminent Examples, And If We Run Over Our Private List Of Poets, Critics, Philanthropists And Philosophers, We Shall Find Them Infected With This Dropsy And Elephantiasis, Which We Ought To Have Tapped.

Power Obeys Reality, And Not Appearances; Power Is According To Quality, And Not Quantity.

Thought Is The Seed Of Action.

We Are Thus Assisted By Natural Objects In The Expression Of Particular Meanings. But How Great A Language To Convey Such Pepper-corn Informations!

Fear God, And Where You Go Men Shall Think They Walk In Hallowed Cathedrals.

Your Genuine Action Will Explain Itself, And Will Explain Your Other Genuine Actions. Your Conformity Explains Nothing.

It Is One Of The Biggest Blessing That You Can Be Stupid With Your True Friends And Behave Like You Shame To Do Elsewhere

And Last Of All, High Over Thought, In The World Of Morals, Fate Appears As Vindicator, Levelling The High, Lifting The Low, Requiring Justice In Man, And Always Striking Soon Or Late When Justice Is Not Done. What Is Useful Will Last, What Is Hurtful Will Sink.

An Ounce Of Action Is Worth A Ton Of Theory.

We Are Shut Up In Schools And College Recitation Rooms For Ten Or Fifteen Years, And Come Out At Last With A Bellyful Of Words And Do Not Know A Thing.

A Friend Is A Person With Whom I May Be Sincere. Before Him I May Think Aloud.

A Man Is The Prisoner Of His Power. A Topical Memory Makes Him An Almanac; A Talent For Debate, Disputant; Skill To Get Money Makes Him A Miser, That Is, A Beggar. Culture Reduces These Inflammations By Invoking The Aid Of Other Powers Against The Dominant Talent, And By Appealing To The Rank Of Powers. It Watches Success.

...in The Wilderness, I Find Something More Dear And Connate Than In The Streets Or Villages...in The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

The Finest Poetry Was First Experience.

I Shun Father And Mother And Wife And Brother, When My Genius Calls Me.

When We Are Exalted By Ideas, We Do Not Owe This To Plato, But To The Idea, To Which Also Plato Was Debtor.

The Cruelest Foe Is A Masked Benefactor. The Wars Which Make History So Dreary Have Served The Cause Of Truth And Virtue.

The Disease With Which The Human Mind Now Labors Is Want Of Faith

A Man In Pursuit Of Greatness Feels No Little Wants.

Not The Sun Or Summer Alone, But Every Hour And Season Yields Its Tribute Of Delight.

Some People Will Tell You There Is A Great Deal Of Poetry And Fine Sentiment In A Chest Of Tea.

Every Advantage Has Its Tax.

We Talk Of Choosing Our Friends, But Friends Are Self-elected.

Nothing Great Ever Happened Without Enthusiasm.

There Are Always Two Parties; The Establishment And The Movement.

The Power Of A Man Increases Steadily By Continuing In One Direction.

A Good Deal Of Our Politics Is Physiological.

It Is God In You That Responds To God Without, Or Affirms His Own Words Trembling On The Lips Of Another.

Obedience Alone Gives The Right To Command.

If We Meet No Gods, It Is Because We Harbor None.

Could Shakespeare Give A Theory Of Shakespeare?

The Solar System Has No Anxiety About Its Reputation, And The Credit Of Truth And Honesty Is As Safe; Nor Have I Any Fear That A Skeptical Bias Can Be Given By Leaning Hard On The Sides Of Fate, Of Practical Power, Or Of Trade, Which The Doctrine Of Faith Cannot Down-weigh.

The City Is Always Recruited From The Country. The Men In Cities Who Are The Centres Of Energy, The Driving-wheels Of Trade, Politics Or Practical Arts, And The Women Of Beauty And Genius, Are The Children Or Grandchildren Of Farmers, And Are Spending The Energies Which Their Fathers' Hardy, Silent Life Accumulated In Frosty Furrows In Poverty, Necessity And Darkness.

Each Age, It Is Found, Must Write Its Own Books; Or Rather, Each Generation For The Next Succeeding.

Man Sheds Grief As His Skin Sheds Rain.

What Is The End Of Human Life? It Is Not, Believe Me, The Chief End Of Man That He Should Make A Fortune And Beget Children Whose End Is Likewise To Make A Fortune, But It Is, In Few Words, That He Should Explore Himself.

Men Seek To Be Great; They Would Have Offices, Wealth, Power, And Fame. They Think That To Be Great Is To Possess One Side Of Nature,--the Sweet, Without The Other Side,--the Bitter.

Heaven Sometimes Hedges A Rare Character About With Ungainliness And Odium, As The Burr That Protects The Fruit.

The Less Government We Have The Better.

One Can Never Truly Savor Success Until First Tasting Adversity.

We Aim Above The Mark, To Hit The Mark. Every Act Hath Some Falsehood Of Exaggeration In It.

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